Tuesday, January 17, 2006

A Fitting (?) Farewell

The same day the Ambassador Hotel bit the dust, my former colleague Travis -- now living up in Canada -- found an apropos soft-core flick sitting on his TiVo (which, he promises, innocently found its way to the DVR's hard drive):

I was perusing my TiVo, which had mysteriously recorded for me a screening of “Deviant Vixens 2,” probably because of my love of nature documentaries. “Vixens,” however, is not about foxes at all!

One of the perks of Canadian TV is that there’s a much more relaxed attitude towards sexuality on the boob tube. And in fact, this “Vixen” movie is a bit of a sex romp. (Hi, Mom!)

But what I found interesting about it — and other than this, the film’s awful in every respect, trust me — is that it was filmed in 2002 on the grounds of the Ambassador Hotel!

The plot, such as it is, revolves around “Hotel Amore,” which was the playground of celebrities married and less married. The crew appears not to have gotten inside, but the building and grounds are filmed from all sorts of different angles, and the Coconut Grove is easy to spot. The long driveway with palm trees is also present, as is a little graffiti and various barred-off courtyards.

Is someone at CityTV a cineaste tearfully mourning the passing of a Hollywood icon? Was the last film made at the historic Ambassador a talentless yet strikingly appropriate blue movie? I don’t know. But I do know that TiVo’s ability to identify programs I like to watch just became a little scary.

Thankfully, this little piece of Skinemax cinema wasn't the final pic shot at the Ambassador -- Emilio Estevez's "RFK" was -- but it goes to show how extensively the hotel was used as a location in the final years of its life.